<p>Anecdotal musing from the parent of a cross-admit here.</p>
<p>My son was admitted EA to MIT and was also admitted to Olin a couple years ago. His final decision was between them, and he chose MIT, with a number of heavy sighs, even though we are a full-pay family at MIT. He loved the people he met at Olin during Candidates Weekend, and the spirit was contagious. But he knew that in addition to something engineering-y, he wanted to go deeper into mathematical studies than he’d be able to at Olin, and he didn’t want to be so far into the suburbs and isolated as he felt the Olin campus was. Since that time, he’s had a directional change and is now in the Architecture dept. at MIT. This change, which has been great for him, would not have been possible at Olin; he would have had to transfer. </p>
<p>The people and the hands-on environment at Olin were very attractive to him, he couldn’t say enough good about them as pluses. (Honestly, the free tuition was just a bonus, it did not make or break his decision… obviously.) But if you’re not 100% certain you want to go heads-down into engineering, or if there’s any chance you might change your focus, it might be better not to commit to Olin.</p>